


End of Infinity with You

by problematic_pleasures



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet, Kissing, M/M, Mostly Canon Compliant, Open ended, Season 8 Episode 8, Slight Canon Divergence, Soft Negan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-17
Updated: 2018-01-17
Packaged: 2019-03-05 22:46:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13397883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/problematic_pleasures/pseuds/problematic_pleasures
Summary: I'm here at the beginning of the end, the end of infinity with youNegan finds out about the bite.





	End of Infinity with You

**Author's Note:**

> this idea came to me after seeing s8e8 and getting way too emotional at the near-end scene w/ carl and negan. chandler was great, and JDM was so expression with his face in that scene, my heart hurt. i rewatched it again today to get the dialogue as accurate as possible and it hurt again, ten times worse. 
> 
> anyway, some light angst! i had plans to make this a lot more dark but i just don't write angst, so have a bittersweet, almost kinda-sorta hopeful ending. 
> 
> enjoy!

“Kill me.”

Negan stops, Lucille resting on one shoulder and microphone still clenched in his other hand, and slowly looks up at Carl. The pause is long, uncomfortable, and Carl resists the urge to fidget. The Saviors look discomforted by the sudden silence; they look at one another subtly so as not to draw Negan’s attention. Just when Carl thinks he might get the last word, that he might have finally stunned the older man into silence, Negan finally speaks.

“What did you say?” He asks slowly. A chill runs along Carl’s spine.

Carl swallows. “If you have to kill someone, if there _has_ to be punishment, then kill me.” He narrows his eye at Negan even though the darkness and distance make the gesture pointless.

“You _wanna_ die?” Negan’s voice is loud enough without the microphone but seems oddly hushed compared to his earlier tirade. There’s a slack look on his face that Carl can’t bear to stare at for too long.

“No, I don’t.” Carl tries to stand taller, make himself more imposing from where he already stands high above the rest of them. “But I will. It’s gonna happen.”

He doesn’t miss the look—fear, understanding, disbelief—that flickers across Negan’s face. He pushes past it and continues.

“And if me dying could stop this?” He gestures weakly to the Saviors. “If it could make things different for all of us?” He’s breathing heavy now and his vision is swimming. He lingers on the word, _‘us,’_ like it means something more. In a way, he thinks, it does. He swallows again and blinks back the tears pooling in his eye. “For you? For all those other kids? It’d be worth it.”

Negan is still staring. His mouth hangs open just slightly and he looks equal parts devastated and confused.

“Thing is,” Carl starts again with a half-laugh. “Was this the plan? Was it supposed to be this way?” He blinks, sighs, and shrugs off the pain blooming from his side. He looks down at Negan and unmistakably catches his eye, holds his gaze.

“Is this who you _wanted_ to be?” Carl asks.

He coughs around his next laugh, and leans against one of the posts for support. Negan blinks, and faintly Carl can hear him barking orders. There’s the shriek of feedback as the microphone is tossed aside or put away (Carl isn’t sure which).

Carl sits down and lets his legs hang over the side of wall closest to Negan, and watches as the Saviors slowly head back to their cars and Negan heads toward him instead. He smiles down at Negan, but loses it in a wince as pain twinges in his side. Negan stops just beneath him and looks up with a glare.

“Fine,” Negan says, loud enough for his men to hear. “I’ll take _you_ as payment instead. Ain’t gonna kill you, though.”

Even though he figured as much, Carl still feels the words like a slap of betrayal. His heart skips a beat as he imagines slowly, painfully dying, and then turning. He imagines Negan being the one to put him down and loathes the idea as much as he’s praying for it. Carl just nods, and swings his bag over the wall.

Negan catches it and sets it at his feet, followed by Lucille carefully being laid down. Negan looks up again and spreads his arms. It’s more of a drop than is probably safe, but Carl doesn’t care. He takes off his hat—now with a note tucked against the brim—and leaves it at the top of the fence. After making sure it’s secure with a rock, Carl slides closer to the edge of the wall.

“C’mon, kid.” Negan says quieter. Most of the Saviors have returned to their cars by now, and the few stragglers left are mostly talking amongst themselves. “I’ll catch you.”

Carl nods, and lets himself slip off the wall. For a split second all he feels is rushing wind and his heart thudding up into his throat. For a brief, nearly wonderful moment Carl is sure Negan won’t catch him and the drop will kill him. It feels like he falls for eternity, until he lands in Negan’s arms and they tumble to the ground together. Negan buckles under his weight and the force of the fall, but Carl barely feels a thing.

He opens his eye to see Negan staring intently at him, face ashen and lips drawn into a frown. Carl smiles again and leans into his space to brush a quick kiss across his chapped lips. “Sorry,” he murmurs, feeling sleep tugging at the corners of his consciousness. Negan shakes his head; the last thing Carl feels before falling asleep is warm, rough lips against his forehead.

 

 

 

Carl comes to gasping for air. He tries to shoot up in the bed but the flaming pain in his side stops him. He coughs around the excess spit in his mouth and winces every time he inhales and his ribs ache. He brings a hand to his right side and finds it bandaged, and he realizes he’s shirtless. A look around the room tells him he’s in Negan’s bed, and he’s not alone.

“’Bout fuckin’ time.” Negan grouses from where he sits on the couch. He turns his head from side to side to release the tension and crack the stiffness in his neck. He stands and Carl takes in the exhaustion weighing him down. It’s in his face and his legs as he struggles to walk across the room; it’s in the curve of his back, as though he can’t quite stand up straight, and the way his hands are almost shaking at his sides.

Carl opens his mouth to speak but Negan shushes him.

“What the fuck, kid?” Negan sits at the edge of the bed and reaches for him. He takes Carl by the back of his neck and grips him tight, tugs him just barely closer. “When were you plannin’ on telling me about this shit?”

Carl brings a hand to his side and cringes at the warmth bleeding from the wound. “How the fuck am I supposed to bring that up? ‘Oh, by the way, I was a fucking idiot and managed to get bit,’ yeah that just rolls off the tongue.” Carl scoffs and shakes his head. “I haven’t told anyone.” He leans back against the pillow and smiles when Negan goes with him. Negan slides over to his side and gets close, in a way Carl thinks of as cuddling but neither of them ever choose to name.

“Fuck.” Negan presses his face against Carl’s neck and sighs. Carl squirms faintly at the hot air against his skin, and presses even closer. He curls his arms around his middle, where Negan has thrown an arm across his waist. It’s almost too warm to be pressed together like this, but Carl can’t bring himself to move away. “What the fuck, Carl.”

Carl laughs. “I’m sorry? I don’t know what to say.”

“You’re supposed to say this is some sort’a fuckin’ prank. You’re supposed to say you’re lying, that this is some cosmic god damn joke.” Negan’s words are all growled and low against Carl’s neck, and Carl frowns. Negan falls silent. The only sign that he’s still awake is the angry, harsh way he breathes. “Fuck, Carl.”

“I’m sorry.” Carl says softly, genuinely. He turns and tucks his face against Negan’s hair. He inhales the smoky scent, underlain with earthy tones and something that’s just purely Negan. “It’s not like I planned this.”

Negan shakes his head slightly. “First Lucille, n’now you.” He laughs, mirthless. “I couldn’t off her, either. You know that?” Negan still doesn’t look up but his breathing steadies. “Had to have some kid in the hospital go down the hall and…”

Carl kisses the crown of his lover’s head and tugs him closer. He wants to see Negan’s face, painfully aware of how short his time is, but he allows Negan the privacy. He runs his hands through Negan’s choppy hair and memorizes the feeling under his fingertips. He doesn’t press Negan to speak more, and eventually the man starts to talk again on his own.

“I always thought I’d be the first to go. Either cuz of your daddy, or cuz of walkers, or cuz your perky little ass just got sick of me.”

Carl makes a softly wounded noise. He wraps his arms around Negan’s neck but shimmies down the bed, ignoring the twinge in his side, so that he’s finally face to face with his lover. He kisses Negan first, solid and sure. Mouths against mouths, until Carl can’t resist licking at the seam of Negan’s lips, tasting the bitter tang of sadness on his tongue. Negan groans into his mouth and presses into the kiss eagerly. Carl relents to him, tilts his head obediently, writhes against him.

“What the fuck am I supposed to do, kid?” Negan growls against his lips. His hands have fallen into a bruising grip on Carl’s bare hips. His jeans are slipping down and Negan’s thumbs trace the dip of his bones. “You were supposed to be my right-hand man, weren’t you?”

Tears press at the corner of Carl’s eye. He can only nod when the words tangle in his chest.

Negan kisses him again, softer still. “How much time you got?”

“No idea,” Carl murmurs back. “It happened a couple days ago. It’s…” He shrugs, winces. “It hurts. But it hasn’t gotten any worse.”

“You looked like death warmed over on that fuckin’ fence.” Negan says.

Carl frowns and closes his eyes. “Feel like it,” he agrees.

“No one else knows?” Negan asks after a stretch of silence. Carl shakes his head. “Not even Rick?” When Carl shakes his head again, Negan looks caught between delight and dangerous levels of anger. “What do we do now?”

“I left a note.” Carl replies. “Telling them about the bite, and telling them that I was leaving. That I didn’t want any of them to have to deal with it.”

“And what if they come barging here? We only _just_ got rid of those fucking walkers. I don’t want to deal with another god damn attack like that, not right now.”

Carl shakes his head. “He won’t. He won’t think to come here.”

“You didn’t wanna say goodbye to any of them? Not one of ‘em?”

“It would be too hard. They would want to shoot me before I turned—I’d want that, too—but I know it’d be hell on them.”

“Like it’s gonna be a walk in the park for _me_?” Negan hisses back, eyes flaring with anger once more. Carl doesn’t flinch away from the expression. “Fuck.”

“So you said.” Carl says. “Look. Here’s what’s going to happen.” Negan’s gaze softens. “My dad is going to be upset, but they’ll get over it. If, by some miracle, I _don’t_ die, maybe I’ll go back. Regardless.” Carl pauses to kiss him again, chaste. “ _You_ are going to keep doing what you’re doing.” Carl purses his lips stern, though he feels himself unravelling when faced with Negan’s amused disbelief, however tainted it might be with sadness. “Don’t you think for a fucking second of giving up.”

Negan scoff, but his voice isn’t quite as strong when he speaks. “What kinda fool do you take me for?”

Carl smiles. “A lovesick one,” he replies simply. He kisses Negan once more. “Whatever happens,” he continues when they break apart, breathing heavy. “You’ll keep going, just like you did before. You’ll find some new little protégé to train up, and it’ll be—!” His stumbling tirade is interrupted by Negan rolling them over and pinning Carl to the bed. There’s heat in the gesture, and for the first time in days Carl feels lust pooling in his gut, but Negan doesn’t disrobe him further. Negan doesn’t strip out of his clothes and doesn’t start to ravish Carl with kisses or hungry touches.

Negan stares down at him. Carl stares up, biting his lip.

“Don’t know how much time you got left.” Negan says. Not so much a question as a statement, rough and grizzled in tone.

Carl tilts his head up invitingly and counters, “better make the most of it then, right?”

Negan grins and Carl deliberately ignores the look in his eyes. The wetness, the heavy grief already lingering. Carl lets his gaze go unfocused so he doesn’t have to see Negan’s face quite so clearly. Negan doesn’t call him on it, though it must be obvious. He just nods sharply, and says, “You’re damn right.”

**Author's Note:**

> title/summary comes from fall out boy's song [last of the real ones](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YAAyUFL1GQ), which is a very very cegan song if you feel so inclined to give it a listen.


End file.
